I guess that any attention is good attention in the retail biz, but I have to say that whoever recycled the 2006 Salon article titled The Man Behind Abercrombie & Fitch missed the mark. Was this a disgruntled employee, a customer who felt less than welcome (and of course, that is wrong on all levels), or was it Abercrombie’s way of getting attention in a lagging economy where sales have once again plummeted? No matter really, but the original article issued in 2006 — that’s five years ago — and so, one would think, would no longer be relevant. The company and CEO, Jeffries – though in a sideways manner – apologized for the awful comments made in the article so one would think it a done deal, right?
It’s not a done deal. This article went viral on Social Media and was brought back to life big time. It created – for the second time — a firestorm of angry outcries from people that Abercrombie & Fitch considers not attractive. The upshot? With Social Media, real people get the opportunity to voice their opinions, and they’re not sugar-coating anything. So Abercrombie & Fitch took another beating five years after an article, written in particularly poor taste, first published.
Now think about this: What if you could do the same thing with a positive article or case study that you have cached somewhere? If it’s timelessly newsworthy, get it out there. You never know, it just might go viral.
* Please note that we do not link out to the article here because it was in such poor taste.
